


The Fairy Promise

by Komorii



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bee Friend, Epic-Inspired, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fairies, Magic, Thumbelina-Inspired
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:34:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27989307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Komorii/pseuds/Komorii
Summary: It was supposed to be a relaxing trip, a way to forget about your recent worries by visiting your family's old forest cabin that you used to live in as a kid. But a promise, long-forgotten in childhood, comes back to bite and you find yourself shrunk down and betrothed to a foul fairy prince. With the dark fairy king and his minions after you, you have little choice but to put your trust in an odd fairy and his bee companion as you race to undo your curse before the dark prince claims you in marriage, leaving you tiny forever.
Relationships: OC/Reader, Original Character/Reader, Original Male Character/Reader
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Been wanting to write a story with a fairy love interest for a while! I'm intending this to be probably at max 10 chapters, since I have the storyline pretty much all worked out. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also, I have a tumblr now! Link is [here!](https://ao3komorii.tumblr.com/) Will still be posting everything I write on ao3, but figured I would also post stuff there!

Living in a cottage in the woods was exciting for you as a child, but it also came with a very specific set of rules. No playing in the woods. No being out of your parents’ sight. And most importantly, no talking to strangers.

As isolated as your home was, you had never even run into a stranger. The only time you even interacted with anyone other than your parents was when family came to visit, which had only happened a few times in your short life. You had your parents, when they weren’t busy with work anyways, but you found yourself feeling lonely more often than not. And it was that loneliness that spurned your curious mind that day as you opened the front door, intent on picking some flowers to make a flower crown with.

You had wanted to ask your mom to come with you, and had waited patiently outside her office while she was on the phone for almost an hour before you decided to just go by yourself. Maybe when you came back with a flower crown for her, she would praise you and maybe even spend more time with you instead of on the phone.

You happily walked along the path that led from your front door towards the forest, a small basket in your hand and hope in your heart. You knew your parents said never to play in the woods, but there were no flowers in your yard, and you wouldn’t go too far, so it should be okay. The trees weren’t too dense, so you had plenty of light illuminating the forest around you.

You were so busy looking around at the new scenery that you forgot how long you had been walking for, and just how deep into the forest you had come. You were starting to feel tired when you caught sight of a patch of brightly-colored wildflowers, running over and sitting down next to them.

You immediately set to work, braiding the flowers together like the pictures you had seen in your story books. But you had no practice, so your clumsy work was not quick to produce results. You weren’t sure how much time had passed as you worked, but you eventually found yourself too sleepy to continue, half-finished flower chain laying abandoned as you curled up in the grass for a nap.

Upon waking, you found yourself alone in a dark forest, the trees that had given you shade earlier now looming over you like monsters. You were immediately terror-struck; you had never been out by yourself after dark, and you had no idea of how to get back home from where you were. Flower crown totally forgotten, you curled into a ball and began to cry for your parents, hoping they would come and find you.

You cried until your eyes were sore, until your sobs quieted down to whimpers as you shook with fright at every little noise around you. You just wanted your mom and dad to find you so you could say sorry for running off into the woods and then never do it again. You just wanted to be home in your bed and not frozen with fear in the dark forest.

“Little girl…”

You had closed your eyes as they were feeling too sore to keep open, but you opened them once again when you heard a voice. Sitting up, you looked around to see if anybody was around. But no matter how hard you looked, you could see nobody coming to rescue you. Hopes once again dashed, you sat back down, leaning your back against the rough bark of the tree.

“Over here!”

Frowning, you looked in the direction of the voice, but still couldn’t see anyone.

“This isn’t funny!” you cried. “Mommy is coming to get me and she’ll be mad!”

“Nobody is coming, little lost girl,” the voice replied. “Now look at me!”

Accompanying the voice this time was a dark blue sparkle, like a tiny firework. Looking at the spot where the sparkle had been, you noticed a tiny figure hovering above a flower, staring right at you.

You bent over, leaning as close as you could get to the tiny person. He seemed to glow with a magical light, and had wings, but he looked nothing like the fairies in your picture books.

He was ugly, with jagged teeth and a large, crooked nose, his skin a sickly-looking blue-gray. Greasy black hair hung in spikes down his back, complimented by the long black coat and pants he wore. Even his wings were black, a far cry from the brightly-colored fairies you had seen in stories.

Your despair forgotten, you stared in wonder at the creature. “Are you a fairy, mister? Did you just do magic? Do you live here?”

The tiny man scoffed in annoyance. “Human children… you ask too many questions. But yes, I am a fairy. King of the dark fairies, in fact.”

You frowned, leaning back. “Dark fairies? Does that mean you’re evil? I don’t like evil people.”

“You shouldn’t be insulting someone when they can help you!” he growled. “It sounds like you don’t want to go back home…”

“Wait!” you pleaded. “You can take me home? Please help me, I want to go home!”

The fairy huffed haughtily. “That’s more like it, brat. But first, you have to help me with something.”

“Okay…” That seemed fair to you, especially if he was helping you get home.

“Excellent,” he sneered. “You may be annoying now, but you’ll grow out of it. All I need is for you to make me a fairy promise.”

“…a fairy promise?” you echoed curiously.

“Yes, a fairy promise,” he stressed impatiently. “I will take you home, but in exchange, you will marry my son.”

“Marry?” you replied with a pout. “But mommy says I’m not old enough to get married!”

“Not now,” the fairy retorted. “When you’re older.”

“Oh, okay,” you nodded. “Can I go home now?”

Instead of replying, the fairy pulled a piece of fancy-looking paper out of his pocket, waving a hand around and causing the paper to grow to normal size for you. Grabbing the paper, you looked it over, frowning as you realized that it was full of big words and written in a fancy script that was too hard for you to read.

“What does it say?” you asked the fairy as he floated up at your shoulder, hovering close to you.

“Never mind what it says,” he grunted. “Just sign your name on the line. You know how to write your name, don’t you?”

“I can write my name!” you insisted, taking a pent that he had also magically sized up for you.

Looking for the line, you pressed the paper against the tree and began to write your name just how you had practiced with your dad before. After you were done writing, you grinned happily, satisfied with your handiwork. The fairy had no intentions of waiting, however, as he snapped his fingers and caused the paper and pen to burst into sparkles that you watched fall with awe.

“That was so cool, can you do it again?” you asked excitedly.

“No!” the fairy replied angrily. “I do not do tricks for humans! Now we must get you home.”

“Aw, okay…” you conceded with visible disappointment, getting up to follow the fairy through the forest.

You started to get excited as you spotted light along the path, knowing that meant you were almost home. As you were about to break into a run, the fairy’s voice stopped you.

“Remember our little promise. I will come to collect you when the time is right.”

“Okay, mister fairy!” you replied before darting off to your house, excited to tell your parents that you had met a fairy.

It was a running joke in your family. Your parents had recounted the story to every relative or friend they knew, the story of their daughter getting lost in a forest and then coming home and saying a fairy helped her get back.

You didn’t remember the story happening at all; in fact, you could barely recall that cottage in the woods at all. Your parents had gotten better jobs in the city two years later when you were eight and had moved the family to a city a few hours’ drive from the cottage, and that’s where you had stayed for the past fifteen years.

Your parents had never let you live down that forgotten childhood experience; every time you were spaced out, you would be asked if you were _talking to the fairies_. It got very old very fast, but your parents just weren’t willing to let that old joke die. The fairy-themed items in your room were proof enough of that, endless gag gifts given to you over the years just to watch your reaction as you opened them.

At twenty-three, you had already done the whole college experience, found a job and got yourself a boyfriend. But after two out of three of those things fell through, you were left single, jobless and unsure of what you wanted to do with your life.

It had first been your dad that suggested that some time away may be just what you needed. Your parents had kept ownership of the cottage even after moving out, intent on eventually using it as a summer home. The place had sat unused for years, but now it was yours for the summer if you wanted it, your dad had offered. A summer away from all your worries and problems. The offer sounded good, except for the part where he had told you that you could also use the time to reunite with your _fairy friend_.

So you found yourself packing your car the last weekend of June, planning to head out to the cottage the next day. You weren’t fully sure what to expect, given that you had been a child the last time you were there, and didn’t remember that part of your life very well. But it wasn’t like you had any better options for your summer, so off you went. You still had your phone, so it wasn’t like you would be totally disconnected from the world.

The trip to the cottage was long and boring, and way too warm, even with your air conditioner on. You found yourself hoping against hope that the cottage had an air conditioner, or at least some trees overhead for shade. If not, then you weren’t sure how long you would last out there.

The cottage was so remote that you had to turn off the road and drive down a grassy path for the final bit of the drive, eventually coming upon a one-story cottage surrounded by trees. You felt a slight sense of déjà vu staring up at the home, but it had clearly been a while since anyone was here. The grass had been growing free for a long time, now brushing your knees as you approached the front door, key in hand.

The lock opened easily, which was a relief; you hadn’t made the hours-long journey just to spend another hour fiddling with a lock. You set about moving your bags inside, knowing that if you didn’t do this now, you wouldn’t be motivated to do it later.

You found yourself surprised at how clean it was on the inside. Fifteen years empty and not a cobweb in sight. Must be such a rural area that not even spiders bothered with the place, which suited you just fine.

You found your old room easily enough, glad your parents hadn’t bought you a child-sized bed, or you would be stuck sleeping on the couch for two months. Setting up your things, you began to ponder just what to do first. Your parents had given you a portable internet router, but the directions to set it up looked like they would make your head hurt, so you would sort that out tomorrow. So that left you with the option of watching videos on your phone with spotty data, or taking a walk around the area.

It wouldn’t hurt to get a better idea of the area, and you might even find some berries to bring back with you. You just hoped that the forest was as free from spiders as the cottage was, or you would be retreating back here sooner rather than later.

After fixing a quick lunch and texting your parents that you had arrived in one piece, you changed into more outdoor-friendly clothing and stowed your phone in a pocket before heading out the front door. If you found anything interesting in the forest, you might as well get a photo to look back at later. Something to remember your two-month quarter-life crisis escapade by.

The forest looked dense, but nothing like the intimidating force you had fleeting memories of from childhood. It looked every bit of the normal forest that you could find all over the world, just more overgrown than the typical forest, because it seemed like nobody ever came here.

Your best route into the forest looked to be an area of not-too-long grass that seemed easy enough to walk through. The trees that had likely towered over you as a child were now not too far overhead, the light that shone through the treetops just enough to not be overpowering in its warmth. As you walked further along the path, you felt confident that this had been the right choice for your day.

You generally kept along the more grassy areas of the forest, stopping occasionally to take pictures of flowers or small animals that you saw on your way. You walked past several bushes that had what looked like berries on them, but left them be when you couldn’t recognize them. It was only after rewatching a video you had taken of a family of bunnies drinking from a small pond that you began to wonder exactly how long you had been out here for.

Checking the time on your phone, you realized it had been almost two hours since you had entered the forest. And now with your phone full of new photos, it seemed like a good time to turn back and figure out what you would do for dinner. The forest would still be here for you to visit for the next two months, so your quest for berries could resume at a later time.

Now you would just have to figure out how to get back. You hadn’t exactly been keeping track of your route, but you hadn’t left the grassy areas of the forest, so you could probably just head back where you had come from and eventually you would get back to the cottage. There had been plenty of memorable sights on the way to where you were, so if nothing else, if you saw familiar things, then you knew you were going in the right direction. And if nothing else, you had your phone, as embarrassing as it would be to have to call someone to rescue you from a forest at your age.

You were just passing the pond where the bunnies had been before when a tug on your shoe caught your attention. Looking down, you realized that one of your shoes had gotten stuck in a patch of sticky mud. You hadn’t noticed any mud when you were here last, but moving your foot told you that you were certainly stuck now. You really liked these shoes too…

Just as you were considering reaching down to cut your losses and remove your shoe, your focus was interrupted by a buzzing around your face. With an annoyed huff, you reached a hand up to swat at the rather large bug that was hovering around your face. You really didn’t want to end your day without a shoe _and_ covered in bug bites. As you made a motion to smack the bug away from you, you were shocked as your hand froze in midair right next to your face.

You stared in disbelief at your arm, finding that the numbness had quickly moved to engulf your entire arm, and then moved to the rest of your body. Unable to do any more than blink, you began to panic. Had the mosquito bit you and been carrying some weird exotic fast-acting virus? You searched your brain, but you couldn’t find any more plausible explanations for your current predicament.

You were then forced to confront the formerly-unimaginable as the bug you had presumed to be a mosquito flew before your face, stopping a few inches away from your nose. With an involuntary shudder, you quickly realized that it was not a mosquito, or a fly, or any bug you had ever seen before or even on the internet.

You felt almost sick as you looked at the tiny creature. His blue-gray skin and choppy black hair were more reminiscent of some sort of a troll, but the wings on his back turned your frantic thoughts in a direction you could never have anticipated. Was this… a fairy? As much as you didn’t want to believe it, you didn’t know what else the small winged man could possibly be. But if he was a fairy, did that mean… were all those years of fairy jokes from your parents less based on childhood delusions than you had thought?

“I’m dreaming,” you said to yourself, closing your eyes for a few seconds, only to open them to see the tiny man still before you, dread seeping into your skin as you could do nothing but stare, still unable to move a muscle.

“You made me wait a very long time,” the fairy spoke darkly, starling you with just how deep and gruff his voice sounded. You hadn’t known that fairies really existed until now, but you still found yourself surprised that they didn’t all have high-pitched voices like they did in cartoons. But beyond the sound of his voice, his words were equally startling.

“I don’t even know you!” you retorted in confused panic.

The fairy sneered at you. “The human memory has never been remarkable. At least you’ve grown up to be a beauty. A perfect match for my son.”

You shivered at his words; had this guy been the fairy from your childhood… the fairy that you had told your parents about… the one that you had been teased about since you were a child? But more than that, his last statement immediately concerned you.

“Your son? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a human. Also, I just got out of something, so I’m not really looking and–”

The fairy held up a single hand, and then your jaw was locked in place, cutting off your ability to talk. Now only in control of your eyes, you watched as the fairy conjured a size-appropriate piece of parchment and held it up towards you as if you would have any chance of reading the tiny print. At once, the paper began to grow, expanding to be normal-sized for you within seconds. There was still a lot of fine print that you couldn’t hope to read without a magnifying glass, but you could read what looked to be your name, written messily on the dotted line at the bottom of the scroll. You could barely even tell it was your own name, the childish scrawl distorting some of the letters.

“Many years ago in this forest, you made me a fairy promise. A promise that you would marry my son. You may have gotten away once, but this time I intend to complete our deal.”

You still couldn’t protest, or even move, and were unable to resist as the supposed contract burst into dark blue sparks that began to rain down on you.

You closed your eyes tightly, not wanting to get the mysterious dust in your eyes. You coughed and sputtered as the dust hit your nose and mouth, a sudden onset of sickness causing you to fall to your hands and knees as your head felt like it was spinning. It was hard to focus on anything other than your pained coughs, your throat feeling like it was in a vice. By the time your cough faded and you felt less dizzy, you were laying on the ground, one hand on your collar as you tried to steady your own breathing. It was only when you brought your other hand up to rub at your sore eyes that you realized you could move again.

As soon as you opened your eyes, you immediately wished you could take the action back. You were laying on your side, but you felt like you had fallen and hit your head.

You were surrounded by giant, thin plantlike structures that were all at least ten times your height. Standing up, you approached one, the familiar feel of the plant rocketing you towards a horrific realization… the mystery plants were grass. Extremely tall grass.

Looking around, you realized that the weirdly tall grass wasn’t your only problem. You were surrounded by giant rocks bigger than your head, and what looked to be a field of mud just behind you. Your slow brain only caught up to your situation as a giant red and black creature flew by above your head. Even at a new size, a few seconds of watching it made you realize that it was a ladybug.

The realization sent a jolt of panic through your stomach, and you squatted down in place, your hands clutching the sides of your head. You hadn’t been teleported to another world… you had just been shrunk down.

A now-giant-in-proportion-to-you caterpillar appearing from behind a nearby patch of grass had you leaping back with a scream as you hid behind some grass and gave it plenty of space to move by you. You were still cowering behind a blade of grass when the likely culprit for your current predicament descended from the sky, landing on the ground just in front of you.

He was immediately more intimidating now that you had been shrunk down; before, he was so small that you had to squint to see any of the definitions of his features, but now you could see him clearly. And worse yet, he was now taller than you were. Now that you were the same size, you could see just how much muscle had had on his frame, his stature scaring you further as you tried to conceal yourself behind the blade of grass to avoid his attention, though your effort was clearly futile as he strode right up to your hiding place.

“C’mere, girl. I don’t have time to waste. My son is waiting for his bride,” he declared, a shiver of fear running down your spine. You weren’t about to willingly become his son’s bride. No way.

The fairy’s eyes narrowed at your refusal to budge from your hiding spot, the fire in his eyes telling you that you were walking on very thin ice. He took one step forward, and that was enough to force your legs into motion as you turned to run away from the advancing fairy. You didn’t account for the new terrain however, and your arm was quickly seized from behind as you stumbled.

You shrieked as you were pulled back towards the determined brute, your head spinning as you were quickly tossed to the side and caught by two large fairies that you hadn’t even known were there. They were the same sickly shade of blue-gray as their leader, and looked equally as friendly as they glared sternly at you, as if challenging you to dare to struggle in their hold.

“Back to the castle!” the leader demanded gruffly, his wings beating as he took into the air.

You squeaked as the guards on either side of you took flight as well, lifting you into the sky with them. You tried to resist, kicking with your dangling legs and trying to break their hold, but it was no use. You were forced to stop fighting as you rose higher and higher; at this height, you likely wouldn’t be able to escape severe injury if you were to fall.

You couldn’t do much other than look out over the passing scenery in hopes you could distract yourself momentarily from your current situation, as well as the pain in your arms. Being carried by your biceps was giving you throbbing pain down your entire arms, but you doubted that complaining at the two bulky guards would go anywhere, so you kept silent as you tried to bear the pain through gritted teeth.

The farther you flew, the less you recognized of your surroundings. Fields of grass began to fade to bleak, gray patches of earth that looked like all life had been drained from the land. The only signs of life you could see were occasional blades of long-dead grass, brown and drooping to the gray, cracked soil.

Eventually, you noticed a large outcropping of rocks in the distance, quickly discerning that this must be the so-called castle the leader had mentioned. As you got closer, you were able to make out jagged towers carved out of dark obsidian rock that vaguely reminded you of evil castles you had been in fantasy movies. The castle was surrounded by twisting thorns, the only vegetation you could see in the area of barren soil.

You were dragged down into what looked like the mouth of a cave, which turned out to be an underground entrance to the castle. At last, your feet were allowed to touch the ground, the cold of the rock chilling your feet even within your shoes. Your arms were given no relief as the men dragged you farther into the dark, damp cave, your body breaking out in goosebumps from the cold.

You were then pulled up a sharp incline, stumbling on the slippery rock from trying to match the fast pace your captors were pulling you at. Wet and terrified, you were shoved into a room, the door closed loudly behind you, and then you found yourself alone.

“Best prepare yourself!” the leader’s voice called out from the other side of the stone door. “Tomorrow, you’ll be wed!”

You could hear his mocking laughter echo against the rocky hallway as he walked away, eventually leaving you alone with your own thoughts. As soon as you couldn’t hear him anymore, you approached the door, pushing against it with all of your weight, but no matter how hard you tried, the stone didn’t budge one inch. Frustrated, you pounded a fist against the door, wincing as jolts of pain ran across your knuckles.

With no hope of escaping through the door, you turned to assess the rest of the room you now found yourself in. You were immediately dispirited as you looked upon the windowless room, furnished with only a small bed with thin sheets. There wasn’t even a bathroom, so you were stuck being muddy and grass-stained for the night, though that was the least of your problems right now.

If you didn’t get out of here, then you would be married off to that horrible fairy’s son; even if you _were_ looking for a relationship right now, you doubted that the son would be any less repulsive than his father. But your room had no windows, and the door was too heavy for you to move; if you were to make your escape, it would have to be tomorrow.

And even if you did escape, then what? Now that you were tiny, the forest was a million times bigger, and it wasn’t like you knew where you were after being dragged so far into the forest. And how could you get yourself back to normal size? It wasn’t as if the king was going to let you go now that he had you.

Sitting down on the cold bed, you stared at the uneven, rocky floor as you tried not to cry. Had this really all happened because child-you had signed some magic contract with an opportunistic fairy? And what right did he have to make contracts with children that didn’t understand what they were agreeing to anyways?

 _Evil fairy_ , you reminded yourself. They clearly had no place for morals in their society. You found yourself longing for the fairies you had seen in cartoons, the nice ones that were all about friendship and nature, not kidnapping young women to forcibly marry to their sons. You couldn’t help but be disappointed by the reality that fairies were clearly not like they were in cartoons.

You would figure it out tomorrow. You would wait for your chance, and then you would get the hell out of this awful castle. You could deal with the issue of your size later; as long as you remained trapped here, you would have no hope of returning to your normal life. You would escape, put as much distance between you and this place as possible, and then look for a way to return to your normal size.

You had no choice but to try and sleep. It was already going to take all of your cunning and a lifetime’s worth of luck to escape the clutches of the fairies, but it would be even more difficult if you were also low on sleep. You doubted your chances of getting a full night’s sleep, but even a few hours would probably make a difference.

With that thought in mind, you pulled back the thin sheets and crawled into the bed, shivering from how cold the sheets felt against your body. Fairies had to be cold-blooded; there was no other way they could live in this freezing cold rock castle without dying of hypothermia. You could only hope that you would be able to still feel your fingers come morning. Closing your eyes, you desperately hoped that tomorrow wouldn’t end with you married and stuck this size forever.

Eventually, you had gotten used enough to the cold bed to fall asleep. You woke up feeling at least marginally well-rested, but the immediate sight of the stone walls that trapped you brought your spirits crashing down as you shook the sleep from your mind and your full situation came back to you.

The room was as silent as it had been when you had fallen asleep last night. It felt like you had slept all night, but with no windows in the room, you had no idea of what time it was. You had lost your phone at some point in your kidnapping, so you couldn’t even rely on that for timekeeping either.

For it supposedly being your wedding day, there didn’t seem to be any activity in the section of the castle you were in. You supposed that you could have been put in some unused wing of the castle to keep you out of earshot of any plans, but you wouldn’t know for sure until you got out of this room. As much as you resented your forcible engagement, the silence was almost worse, being trapped in this room, mind swirling with what-ifs. You just wanted them to come get you already; the sooner you could plan your escape, the better, as far as you were concerned.

You were tracing a spidery crack in the wall with your eyes when you finally heard some movement from outside your room. You weren’t sure whether to keep sitting or stand up as the sounds got closer, your indecision leaving you seated at the edge of the bed as the stone door began to open.

You felt immediately on guard as the leader entered the room, looking no less unpleasant than he had the day before. Like yesterday, he was followed by more burly guards, though you couldn’t recall their faces with enough confidence to figure out if they were the same guards from yesterday or not. And behind the guards marched in a group of several surprisingly normal looking middle-aged female fairies; with how all the male fairies looked, you were surprised to see anyone here with more conventionally human facial features.

“Did you sleep well?” the leader asked you.

You bit your tongue, resisting the urge to roll your eyes at the total lack of sincerity in his voice. If you had any chance of escaping, you would have to play nice for now and wait for an opening. You did your best to look shy and scared, hiding your anger away for the moment as the women behind the leader strode forward.

“You must be a wreck, poor thing!” one of the women cooed. “So excited for her big day that she couldn’t sleep!”

“We’ll have you looking beautiful, don’t you worry!” another of the women joined in.

They were either great liars or completely delusional to be acting like you would be happy in this situation. Was kidnapping human women for forced marriages normal for fairies? You got the feeling that the question would not be welcomed, so you kept it to yourself.

“She is as pretty as you said!” the third woman spoke up, and you had to supress a shiver of displeasure as she came closer to you to give you a look-over.

“To your post, women,” the leader ordered, his voice quieting the trio of women immediately. You didn’t like now he spoke to them, but it wasn’t as if you had gotten the impression that he respected women from your interactions with him. Somehow, you found it sadder that he didn’t even have it in him to be nice to the women who were on his side. It pained you to think about what his son was like, and unfortunately, you weren’t left waiting long on that front.

The trio of ladies left the room, but not before bowing to the leader, the scene leaving you with a sour taste in your mouth. As quickly as they left, the doorway was occupied again, this time with an unfamiliar young man that only worsened the uncomfortable feeling in your chest.

The man that lumbered in was almost too broad for the doorway, striding into the room with a haughty smirk on his lips. He had his father’s nose, crooked and bulbous, and by the look in his eyes, he likely had his father’s temperament as well. His hair was shorter than his father’s, but looked just as unwashed, and was the same tar black as his long sideburns and matching unibrow. He looked like the caricature of every troll under the bridge you had read about in fairy tales, just with the addition in large black fairy wings that spread out behind him.

“My son,” the leader introduced with pride. “And your future husband, Prince Cragg.”

As he heard his name, Cragg strode up to his father before looking you over. You looked down at the floor, unwilling to meet his appraising gaze. After a few long seconds, he turned back to his father, who you now assumed was the king of this place by how he introduced his son.

“I thought she’d be prettier, but she’ll do,” Cragg huffed. Just when you thought he couldn’t possibly get any more repulsive…

The king snorted. “Nothing that can’t be fixed. She’ll be a worthy bride for this family when we’re done with her.”

You couldn’t help a repulsed shudder. They were talking about you like you were an unruly dog; the only positive thing you were able to take from their words was the nice reminder of just how much you wanted to get out of here as soon as you could.

Satisfied with his father’s response, Cragg marched forward to approach you, your fingers immediately grasping the sheets to try and will yourself into having the mental fortitude to deal with this jerk. He immediately got way too close for comfort and you felt disgust settle in your stomach as you felt him lean down to smell your hair.

“Ya smell nice at least,” he remarked, letting go of your hair after about fifteen seconds. You were displeased to discover that he smelled as bad as his greasy hair implied he would. “And you’re quiet. Good, I don’t like mouthy women. Women gotta know to be quiet when the men are talkin’.”

You felt like throwing up in your mouth. But you had to maintain your calm; you could freak out about all of this when you were a safe distance away from these crazies, but until then, you would maintain your outward calm.

“You’ll like your dress,” Cragg bragged in a low voice you assumed he thought was sexy. “Picked it out myself.”

“We need to get you into your wedding clothes,” the king announced as you were trying to lean away from Cragg’s wandering hands.

Cragg groaned in annoyance. “Can’t it wait? I’m tryin’ to get some!”

“ _Now_ , Cragg,” the king insisted.

Cragg loudly scoffed, stomping his foot like an overgrown toddler before marching back over to his father.

Before you could feel too relieved, the king continued. “Besides, there will be plenty of time for _that_ on the wedding night.”

While you had to hold your lunch in, Cragg seemed pleased by his father’s assertion. Turning back to you, he winked at you, as if that could have possibly overwritten your very recent memory of watching him have a man-baby tantrum from your brain.

“Hope you’re ready for all this tonight,” Cragg stated confidently, gesturing not-at-all subtly towards his dick.

None of the men in the room batted an eye at the prince’s gross behavior, but that didn’t exactly surprise you. Who would have thought that fairies were actually sexist assholes? You had several bones to pick with fairy depictions in cartoons when this was all over.

“Take the girl to the dressing room,” the king instructed the guards without even looking at you, instead leading Cragg out of the room with him.

Left alone with the intimidating guards, you had no choice but to get up from the bed and follow them. You were led out of the room by one man, the other following right behind you, assumedly to discourage any escape attempts. The guards were silent, which worked well for you as it gave you the time to fully observe your surroundings as you walked.

The hallway you walked through was lined with paneless windows, a discreet glance out of one as you walked by telling you that you were at least fifty feet up. It wasn’t an ideal escape route, but at least you knew this place had windows.

The rest of the walk to the so-called dressing room was unhelpfully dull. After you had turned the corner from the hallway that was lined with windows, you were surrounded by nothing but dark, rocky walls. The lack of windows only made you more disorientated as you followed the guard around several turns until he finally stopped in front of a room with an ornate wooden door. You were relieved that they had normal doors in this place, though you couldn’t help but worry that you wouldn’t be able to find your way back to those windows with all the turns you had made in this confusing castle.

The first guard knocked on the door while you stood awkwardly behind him, very aware of just how close behind you the other guard was. You looked back at him, but two seconds of his intense gaze had you turning back to stare at the door ahead of you.

After a few moments, the door opened to reveal one of the women that had been in your room earlier, her eyes lighting up when she noticed you standing behind the guard.

“Bring her in, bring her in!” the woman urged the guard, who quickly stepped aside to let you by. Urged forward by the threat of the guard’s weapons, you reluctantly followed the overexcited woman into the room.

After you entered, the woman turned back to the guards. “The men wait outside.”

And then the door was closed in the faces of the guards and you found yourself in a room with all three women who had previously been in your room. While the woman who had answered the door ushered you forward, the other two brought a dress form forward from the back of the room.

You were surprised to see that the dress was white; you would have thought these fairies would prefer darker colors, given everything you had seen from them so far. A white dress seemed so out of place in the dark, cold, moody atmosphere of the rocky castle.

You weren’t given a chance to check out the room you were in properly as the women descended on you, pulling off your clothes without care for your reluctance. You were surprised at the sheer strength the women possessed; despite your attempts to resist, you were quickly stripped of your own clothing and just as quickly dressed in the uncomfortably tight wedding dress.

As a mirror was pulled in front of you, you realized why Cragg had chosen this dress. The dress was blatant in its sexiness; it had a flower-like theme, with fabric in petal shapes barely covering enough of your breasts for you to retain any decency. The bodice was largely see-through, with petals and larger white flower shapes connecting the chest of the gown to the skirt. The skirt of the dress was tight on your hips, and was thankfully not see-through as it flowed outwards at mid-thigh to a mermaid shape. Despite the gown not covering much of the top half of your body, it was still uncomfortably restrictive on your breathing. You had never realized how much you took breathing for granted until you had this monstrosity on.

The group of fairies around you had the polar opposite reaction from how you were feeling, cooing over you and the dress.

“Prince Cragg has such taste!” one of the women squealed.

“If only I were younger,” another one lamented. “He grew up to be so handsome!”

 _Then you marry him_ , you wanted to say, but held your tongue. You knew that insulting the prince would do you no favors, no matter how much you wanted to ask if they were blind to be able to find Cragg attractive. Instead, you took the opportunity to tune them out and survey the room while the women gossiped.

Thankfully, this room wasn’t the closed-off prison that the previous room was. Your attention was immediately drawn to two large windows on the wall to your left, affording you a view of the winding thorned vines outside that surrounded the castle. The windows were currently closed, but looked easy enough to open, though you were still high up. As dangerous as it was, your best options seemed to be either taking your chances climbing down the thorns or just jump and hope you wouldn’t break anything. Now all you needed was an opportunity to be alone in the room.

You weren’t sure what to do to get the trio of women out of the room; you doubted they would believe it if you told them Cragg wanted a foursome with them or something. You knew you wouldn’t be able to stall for too long, considering how eager they were to marry you off, so you tuned back into their conversation, hoping to hear something you could exploit.

“I remember when I was married,” one of the women reminisced. “I wish my dress was half as beautiful as this one!”

You recognised that her comment was half directed at you and awkwardly forced a smile as you ran a hand along the skirt of your dress. You continued to look around the room, but there wasn’t much of note besides the windows and the mirror in front of you. You began to feel the nerves creep over your skin as the seconds ticked by without any change as the women continued to fawn over your dress.

You realized you had been thinking too hard again when you were suddenly spun around and sat down on a stool one of the women had brought forward. Immediately, your face was pushed and pulled in various directions as odd-looking makeup was applied to your face. You closed your eyes, scared they would get makeup in them; it was already bad enough that it was being put on your skin when you had no idea what was in it. You didn’t feel any pain at the moment, but you kept yourself very still as you hoped they weren’t painting you blue or something.

When they were finished, you were turned around and presented to the mirror to look at yourself again. You were surprised to see that the most blue they used was an eye shadow, although the color combination they used was a little odd; a bright red lip that clashed heavily with the bright blue eye shadow, but at least you didn’t look like a blueberry as you had feared. But clearly they had never looked at a human fashion magazine.

You knew that your time was running low as a long veil was brought out, white and translucent and dotted with small blue flowers. Once you were fully dressed, you would likely be taken to whatever version of a church they had in this rocky fortress, and then it would be game over for you. You dug your nails into your palms to try and quell your panic as the veil was placed on your head.

“Just perfect!” one of the women cried out, her wings beating harder in her excitement.

You could see the women all tearing up in the reflection of the mirror. As they wiped at their faces and made jokes about needing to touch up their own makeup, an idea finally took root in your mind. These women seemed incredibly impressionable, that you could tell from all of your interactions with them. They were so easily persuaded by the king that this marriage was something you wanted, and it was about time you used that to your advantage.

Praying that you had retained anything from high school drama class, you brushed some hair behind your ear, trying to appear as meek as possible as you turned to face the three fairies.

“Um,” you began, making your voice sound as sweet as possible, your skin pricking with hope that this plan could possibly work. “Is it okay to have a moment alone?”

You had their attention now, all three women pausing their chatter to look at you curiously. This next part would rely on them having little to no knowledge of the human world, but based on the odd way they had done your makeup, you were willing to take that gamble.

“Before humans get married, we like to pray to our goddess of love so she’ll bless our marriage,” you spoke slowly, concentrating on not tripping up on your words. “But we have to pray alone, so our connection to the goddess is pure.”

Any normal human would have instantly seen through your lies, but the women in front of you weren’t human, and they sure were gullible. Once you saw one of them raise both hands to her heart, you knew that you had them.

“Oh, you poor dear!” the woman cooed.

“You take your time!” another of the women insisted as they began to head towards the door. “We’ll go tell his highness that you’re ready, so that will give you some time.”

“Thank you so much!” you poured as much emotion into your voice as you could, hoping that it would be the final push to get them the hell out of the room already.

Not willing to expose your inner thoughts, you kept a smile on your face, bowing your head repeatedly in thanks until the three women departed the room at last, taking your dirty clothes with them. You caught a short glimpse of the guards outside your door, but kept your head bowed to keep their suspicions low. As the door closed, you finally allowed the smile to slip off your face as you let out a relieved sigh. Thank god those women were idiots.

As quietly as you could, you made your way over to the windows. Finding the latch, you discovered that the window could definitely be opened wide enough for you to leave through it. But even with that discovery, you still needed a way down. As painful as it looked, the thorny vines that surrounded the castle were your best way down. There was a vine that was within reach of the window, and you knew that you didn’t have a lot of time, but the prospect of falling to your death terrified you. You knew that you had to do this, but you were so, so scared.

To give yourself a little more time before taking the plunge, you made your way over to the tall stool, gently picking it up. The women would be coming back, and you needed to buy as much time as you could. Slotting the stool under the doorknob, you hoped that it would buy you the extra time you needed to escape. For good measure, you also placed the mirror in front of the door, the lack of movement from outside the room telling you that the guards hadn’t heard what you were doing.

With the door sufficiently blocked, you had no choice but to turn your attention back towards the window. Reaching a hand up to the latch before you could chicken out, you grabbed the handle and opened the window, the cold morning air hitting you immediately. Other than the cold, the weather was clear, which would likely help you navigate your way out of this place.

You were so scared that you were having a hard time calming your shaking limbs as you pulled the veil off of your head. At least this awful piece of wedding attire would be a helpful tool for your escape. The end of the vine was thin, too thin to support your weight, so you would have to pull it closer to you so you could climb onto the thicker section of the thorny vine.

Tying one end of the veil to the branch, you began to pull on the veil until the branch was so close that it was poking through the window. Once there was enough of the vine for you to safely climb onto, you tied the other end of the veil to the window handle to hold the branch in place.

It had already been a few minutes since the women had left, so you were likely running low on time. Keeping that thought at the forefront of your mind, you crawled out onto the branch, which was just wide enough for you to crawl on without feeling like you were walking on a tightrope. As terrified as you were, you were filled with relief as soon as you had left the dark, oppressive castle. You were nowhere close to out of the woods yet, but just being in the open air again made you realize just how much you missed freedom.

You slowly crawled along the branch, following along the thorny vine until you reached the point where the one vine became a network of several interlocking vines. Remaining slow and careful, you lowered yourself onto a lower vine that looked like it would take you closer to the ground.

Upon transitioning vines, you were brought to a stop as the skirt of your dress got caught on a large thorn. You tugged desperately at your dress, trying to free yourself; you really didn’t have time for this dumb dress to get you stuck. With one extra hard pull, the sound of fabric ripping pierced the air as a section of your dress was torn off by the thorn.

The tear ended up being a good thing, as the rip up to your knee allowed you to move much easier now that your legs were less restricted. The longer you moved along the vine, the more comfortable you felt traversing the thorny branches. You almost couldn’t believe it when you were finally close enough to the ground to hop off the vine, the two foot drop enough to sting your ankles a bit, but not enough to break anything.

You were relieved that you hadn’t had your shoes removed by the overexcited fairy women, because the cold, dead soil would have been much worse to tread on barefoot. The second you hit the ground, you began running, dodging around the low-hanging thorned vines that hung overhead as you headed towards the patch of green in the distance across the field of gray soil.

Your lungs burned as you ran, but you didn’t stop. If you had any chance of getting away, you needed to get to the grass. Out here in the open field of gray, you were an easily-spotted sitting duck; at least in the grass, there would be places to hide, even if it was still far from ideal.

You came to a stop as soon as you hit the grass, unable to run any longer, your legs and lungs burning with overexertion. Panting, you tried to catch your breath as you leaned against a rock. You knew you had to keep going, but your escape from the castle had exhausted you. If you could just spend one more minute catching your breath…

A rustling in a patch of grass just ahead of you had you stumbling back in fear, watching in terror as a tall figure emerged from the grass.

“…Trigger, this isn’t funny!” a masculine voice called out as the boy came fully into your view.

He wasn’t blue, which was a relief. But then you spotted the wings on his back at the same time that he noticed you.

His green eyes went wide as he stared at you, but his wings had you backing up immediately. You hadn’t come this far to get dragged back to that horrible prince.

The boy looked confused, taking a step towards you, which made you take another step back in response. “…are you okay?”

“Stay back!” You winced at how shaky your voice sounded. “I’m not going back there!”

The boy stopped moving closer, holding up his hands as if to show you he meant no harm. You stared warily at him, not lowering your guard one bit. He could play nice all he wanted, you still weren’t going to let him take you back there.

“You can tell that creepy king that he can kidnap someone else to marry his son!” you exclaimed, finding confidence at last as you scoped out possible escape routes out of the corner of your eye.

The fairy just looked perplexed in response to your words, and you watched closely as he seemed to finally take your whole form in as you quickly reached down to pick up a stick the length of your forearm.

“You don’t have wings…” he muttered, his contemplative mood disintegrated instantly as you raised the stick you held threateningly. “Hey, wait a second! I’m not trying to kidnap you! I don’t even know who you are!”

You lowered the stick as you took in his seemingly genuine confusion. “…you’re not with those blue fairies?”

The boy’s alarm faded as a frown overtook his features. “I didn’t realize I was so close to his castle…”

This weird boy was just wasting your time at this point, so you tossed your stick down and began to walk past him. “If you’re not here to capture me, then I need to get out of here.”

“Wait!” the boy called out, grabbing your wrist as you tried to pass by him. “Are you… a human?”

You looked at him incredulously. “What else would I be? Now can you let me go? I don’t have a lot of time right now!”

“If you’re a human, then how did you get to be this size? Even the dark king shouldn’t have the power to change a human’s size against their will,” he said insistently.

You rolled your eyes. “Why does it matter? He said he made me sign a contract to marry his son when I was a kid and then he turned me tiny.”

The boy’s stare grew several levels more intense. “A _fairy promise?”_

“Uh, yeah, that’s what he said…” you replied awkwardly, not sure why the boy was behaving so intensely all of a sudden.

The boy angrily exhaled in response, before bringing his fingers up to his mouth to loudly whistle. You covered your ears with your hands at the piercing noise with a wince. Why were fairies all so crazy?

“Trigger!” the boy yelled, and you began to back away from him again now that your wrist was free from his grip.

It was in your desperation to get away from the weird guy that you failed to be fully aware of your surroundings. Your back hit something large and fuzzy, which sent you pitching forward in shock with a yelp. Turning around from your position on the ground, you let out an undignified shriek as you came face to antenna with a bee that was the size of a small horse.

While you desperately scrambled on your hands and knees to get away from the giant bee, the boy strode forward, raising a hand to pet the bee’s head. “You kept me waiting, buddy.”

He turned back to you as you got up on your feet again, walking slowly over to you like you were a wounded animal that he was afraid of startling. “Come with me. I know someone who can help you.”

You frowned, crossing your arms over your chest as you stared him down. “How can I trust you? You could be trying to trick me into going back there.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by what sounded like a bell being rung in the distance. The boy looked towards the sound before turning his head back to you, extending a hand your way.

“The dark king has sounded his alarm. If we don’t get out of here now, they’ll be on you in minutes.”

When you didn’t reply or take his hand, he tried one last time.

“I promise I won’t let anything happen to you,” he pledged, the sincerity in his voice making you want to put your trust in him.

What kind of person would make a declaration like that to a girl in a dirty wedding dress that they had only just met? But he seemed nice, at least nicer than the blue fairies, and as much as you hated to admit it, he was right. Alone, you would be recaptured immediately and wed to that awful, sexist toad. But now you had someone who seemed decent offering you his help…

Steeling your nerves, you took his hand, hoping that you wouldn’t come to regret your decision.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand the boy is introduced! Hope you like him :)

This was a nightmare. You had ridden a horse before, but the horse has been equipped with a saddle, and had been on the ground. But your measly horseback riding experience had done nothing to prepare you for what it was like to ride on the back of a speeding bee.

You were sat behind the mysterious fairy boy, his wings awkwardly tucked under your arms that were wrapped tightly around his waist. You were too scared to even look at the scenery around you, your face pressed into his back as your heart beat frantically in your ears. A sharp turn had you letting out a pitiful squeak, your arms tightening even more around him in your panic.

You heard the boy laugh at the same time you felt the vibrations of his laugh through his back. “Relax, Trigger will get us away from the guards!”

“Not if I fall off first!” you replied frantically.

“You won’t fall off,” he called back. “I’ve never… okay, I fell off once, but in my defense, Trigger got into some fermented sugarcane…”

You were stunned into silence. You were so doomed; your hopes of returning to normal were resting on this carefree fairy and his alcoholic bee… why couldn’t you have run into the fairy prince from Thumbelina instead?

You were glad your stupid wedding dress was ripped enough for you to sit with one leg on each side of the bee; as scared as you were right now, those fears would be increased tenfold if you had to ride side-saddle. Beyond your need to not see how high up you were, you were also grateful for how warm the fairy’s back was where you currently were hiding your face. With the speed the bee was flying at, your hair and clothes were being whipped around by the cold morning air, so you readily clung to the warmth of the stranger’s back.

The adrenaline and fear rushing through your system kept you from having any real idea of how much time had passed as you rode on the rocketing bee. You took some comfort in the fact that you couldn’t hear any sirens around you, just the sound of the wind and the low buzz of the bee as it flew.

You were only willing to pull your face away from the fairy’s back when you felt the bee began to descend at last, feeling leaves brushing against your head and arms. Looking around, you found yourself deep in the forest, flying between trees and around branches.

At last, the bee began to zero in on a destination, flying at a small hole in the trunk of a tree just ahead. The hole would be almost too small for humans to notice unless they were looking for it, but was the perfect size for a bee and its two tiny riders to zoom right into.

You finally allowed yourself to relax the smallest bit as the bee’s legs touched the ground at last, bending down to allow you and the boy to jump off. The fairy got off first, holding a hand out to you to help you down when he noticed you still frozen in place on the bee’s back.

As soon as your feet hit the ground, you crumpled on the spot, feeling boneless as you rested on your knees on the ground. Noticing your plight, the bee approached you slowly, buzzing softly in a way you found to be not dissimilar to a cat’s purr as its soft head nuzzled against the back of your shoulder. Turning back to face the now much less scary bee, you were surprised to watch it lower its head, leading you to feel like it was asking for pats. You reached a hand up towards the bee, and it leaning closer to your hand confirmed your suspicions as it allowed you to give its head a gentle pat.

Immediately the bee was upon you, happily buzzing and nuzzling against you as it wordlessly demanded more pats from you. The scary, pony-sized insect had gone from an intimidating monster to an overgrown puppy, the change in your perception of it so sudden that it left you stunned. But it was soft, and you could really use the comfort right now, so you were more than happy to give the bee the attention it craved.

You hadn’t realized that the boy had disappeared, too preoccupied with the overexcited bee. You only realized he had left when he rounded the corner and came back into the small room from the hall that led to the entrance, your eyes meeting his as you looked up at the sound of footsteps. He rose one eyebrow in surprise and you froze, remembering what you were currently doing as a blush rose to your cheeks. The bee, feeling your hand still in its fur, rubbed its head on your hand, pulling your attention back from the fairy as you idly resumed petting its head.

The fairy crossed the room, stopping just in front of you with his hands on his hips as he stared the bee down. “Forgot about me already, Trigger? I thought I was your favorite…”

You couldn’t help a giggle at the boy’s dejected pout, causing his attention to turn back to you.

“And you,” he added, his voice sounding more playful than angry. “You’re just encouraging his behavior. Soon he’s going to start waking me up for belly rubs!”

The bee’s gentle buzzing turned angry, and the fairy was forced to jump back as the bee’s stinger got a little too close to his chest. “Woah, buddy, I didn’t mean it like that!”

Their exchange only brought more giggles out of you, and you watched as the boy rolled his eyes, huffing in mock frustration as he approached you at last.

“So, what’s your name?” he asked. “Seems only right to know the name of the fair maiden I rescued.”

After another round of angry buzzing, he hastily corrected himself. “… _we_ rescued, I mean.”

The bee nodded in satisfaction, moving over to a small bed of leaves and dried flower petals in the corner of the room to give you and the boy some space to talk. You watched the bee until it fully seated itself before finally turning back to face the fairy, shyly giving him your name.

Immediately, his face took on a dubious expression. “That’s a weird name.”

“What?” you replied incredulously. You didn’t think your name was weird...

“What’s your name then?” you countered, a little miffed with the rude fairy.

The boy puffed his chest out proudly. “I’m Pine, and this is my buddy Trigger,” he introduced, nodding towards the bee, who buzzed happily as his name was called.

The fairy’s fiery ego was immediately doused with water as you began laughing. His smirk fell instantly, replaced with confusion and a little offense as he watched you try and fail to stop laughing. At last, you were able to wind your laughter down after a full minute, petering off to small giggles before finally quieting.

The boy frowned as you wiped a tear from the corner of your eye.

“…are you okay?” he asked warily, unsure of what to make of your sudden fit of laughter.

He really didn’t get it? You let out a short, amused giggle as you stared at his confused face.

“You’re calling my name weird, but you’re named after a tree?” you accused, watching as his ruffled pout returned in full force.

“Hey!” he frowned. “Pine is a dignified name! I was named after one of my ancestors, who–”

“Whatever you say, pinecone,” you cut him off, watching with amusement as his jaw dropped in shock.

His ego was further bruised as Trigger let out a series of buzzes from his bed that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Apparently having reached the same conclusion as you had, Pine turned to face the amused bee with a glare.

“Not you too!” he complained, before looking away, frowning at the wall. “I’ll have you know that your name is the stranger one around here!”

“And besides,” he huffed. “I just saved you and this is the thanks I get?”

You smiled; you had to admit, Pine was really cute when he was sulking. Though as much as you didn’t want to feed his ego, you had to admit that he was pretty cute in general.

He was a far cry from his blue counterparts, his pale skin lightly dotted with freckles over both cheeks. His soft-looking honey brown hair was cut to just below his slightly-pointed ears, slanted bangs falling over his forehead to his eyebrows. His eyes were bright green, as bright as they would be out in the sun, despite currently being in a spottily-lit hole in a tree.

He was really cute, cuter than any guy you had dated for sure, but you weren’t about to admit that to him. Realizing that you had been staring at him for a little too long, you decided instead to ask him the questions that had been on your mind.

“Is this place really safe?” you asked, looking around the spottily-decorated room.

The main pieces of furniture in the room were Trigger’s makeshift bed, as well as another bed that more closely resembled a human bed; instead of leaves, the improvised bed consisted of several blankets that would likely be nothing more than handkerchiefs to the eyes of a normal-sized human. No offense to Trigger, but you were relieved that at least one of the members of the household didn’t sleep on the equivalent of a forest floor in autumn.

Pine nodded in response to your question. “I covered up the entrance, so we should be safe here for now.”

“For now?” you echoed worriedly.

“The dark king will have his guards looking all over for you, but we’ll be safe here until tomorrow,” Pine explained. “We’ll have to set out tomorrow before he gets close enough for the fairy promise to be binding.”

“What does that even mean?” you questioned. You kept hearing that phrase, but were no closer to understanding what it meant for your current predicament.

Pine’s bright green eyes briefly drifted to the floor before looking back at you with unmistakable pity in his expression. Your heart felt constricted as you looked at his face, knowing you had gotten yourself in a bad situation, but scared to know just how much trouble you were really in. When he motioned towards the makeshift bed, you were more than happy to follow his lead as you both sat down on the pile of blankets. Trigger laid nearby, his eyes on you bringing you some measure of comfort as you turned your head back to face Pine.

Pine sighed, looking frustrated. “Fairy promises are normal in our society. They’re magically-binding contracts that any fairy can make if the other party agrees. Sometimes they’re used for favors or agreeing on a price for goods or labor, but they’re mostly used by royal or upper class fairies.”

“…so the promise can be made with humans too?” you asked. Obviously that was the case, or you wouldn’t be in this situation, but you needed to know exactly how screwed you were.

Pine’s eyes narrowed with anger as he answered. “They _can_ be made with humans, but not humans too young to consent. The king of fairies has forbidden fairy promises to be made with human children for that reason.”

“Then why did he do it to me if it was against the rules?” you interjected angrily.

Pine shook his head slowly. “You made a fairy promise with the _dark_ king, who doesn’t obey laws set by the real fairy king. The dark fairies have very few morals, so I’m not surprised the king would do something like this.”

“So there are two groups of fairies?” you clarified.

“There are now,” Pine confirmed. “But fairies all used to be under the current king’s rule. Not long before I was born, the dark king and his followers tried to usurp the king, but failed and fled in disgrace.”

“So he’s not a real king then?” you couldn’t help but ask.

“No, he isn’t,” Pine answered with a dry chuckle. “But his followers think he is, even though he doesn’t have the magical authority to enforce laws and has to rely on fairy promises to exert control over others.”

“But if a fairy promise is magically binding, then how do we break it?” you asked, wary of what his answer would be.

You watched Pine’s expression like a hawk for any indication of how bad the news would be, but his face was frustratingly impassive, so you were forced to silently wait as you shifted in place, trying to find a comfortable position to sit in with your uncomfortable dress digging into your skin.

“The first way to break a fairy promise is for the fairy who initiated it to rip up the contract themselves,” he explained.

You rolled your eyes in response. There was little chance that blue jackass king was letting you escape a marriage to his son any time soon.

Pine met your eye roll with a sympathetic smile before continuing. “There is only one other way to break a fairy promise.”

You stared at him as he let out a sigh, seeming troubled. “As the king has magical reign over fairies, only he or another member of the royal family can unilaterally dissolve a fairy promise.”

“So we can just go and ask the king to break the contract?” You felt renewed with hope, until you saw that Pine still looked troubled. “…what’s wrong?”

Pine’s smile looked strained. “Unfortunately, the king isn’t a very understanding person,” he said at last, sending a reassuring grin your way when he noticed your face fall. “…but I do know someone who can help.”

“Someone other than the king?” you questioned curiously.

He nodded. “The king’s daughter, Callia. She has the power to break your promise.”

“But how do you know she’ll agree to do it?” you asked. You really knew almost nothing about Pine, and even though you wanted to believe in him, you needed more information to reassure yourself. Besides that, how did you know that fairy royalty would even help a human? Human royalty was so far out of your reach, and you couldn’t imagine fairy royalty was any better.

“Easy,” he replied with a confident grin. “She owes me a favor.”

“The fairy princess owes _you_ a favor?” you replied incredulously. Just who was this guy?

“You don’t believe me?” he replied with a pout before turning to face his insect companion. “Trigger was there! Trigger, back me up here!”

Trigger didn’t move, his antennas drooping in what seemed to be sleep as his friend’s call for help went unanswered. Laughing quietly, you tried to console the huffy fairy.

“I never said that I didn’t believe you,” you said, your eyes searching his as he turned to face you. “But I was wondering… why are you doing all of this for some random human girl you don’t know?”

You felt relief as you finally voiced the thought that had been on your mind since you had met him. In your world, the kindness he had shown you was reserved for movies or unbelievable viral news stories. Not many people were willing to come to the rescue of some dumb girl who had gotten herself caught up in a bridal kidnapping scheme, and you had found yourself unable to keep from asking him, wanting a reason to let yourself fully trust him.

You were frozen with nerves, unsure of how he would answer, but you were surprised to see none of the tension you felt in his posture, his smile unchanging.

“This isn’t your world,” he answered at last. “And you’re only here because the dark king decided to trick you when you were a child.”

You looked down at the wood floor, feeling stupid despite knowing that what happened wasn’t your fault. If you hadn’t gotten lost that day in the forest as a child, if you hadn’t come back to the cabin so many years later… you couldn’t help but fixate on all of the dumb decisions you had made that had led up to this point.

“Besides, I was just thinking it was getting a little too boring around here lately,” he joked. “If you weren’t here, Trigger might get too bored and start stinging me for fun!”

You both glanced over at the still-sleeping bee before Pine motioned down to your dress.

“It’s not much, but I have some spare clothes you can change into,” he offered.

“Please!” you readily agreed. “Anything to get out of this horrible dress!”

Pine laughed at your eagerness. “That bad?”

“It feels like my ribs are being reorganized,” you groaned as you looked down at the dress.

Pine winced in response, heaving himself up and walking across the room to a pile of belongings, picking up a mint green long-sleeved shirt and a brown pair of pants. With his back facing you, you were given the ability to get a better look at his wings as they spread out behind him.

Unlike the tar black of the dark fairies’ wings, Pine’s wings were a similar green to his eyes. His wings shimmered with ethereal light, swirling patterns not unlike the veins of a leaf spanning the length of the wings. You found a strange comfort in staring at his wings, but were forced to break out of your entranced state when he turned back to bring the spare clothes over to you.

“Hopefully these fit,” he said as he handed the clothes to you. “I don’t keep much at this place.”

His odd phrasing brought up more questions. “You don’t live here?”

Pine shrugged as he turned his back to give you privacy to change. “We travel around a lot, but my main place is in the city.”

“The city?” you echoed as you began to try and undo the corseted top of the dress, wincing as your efforts just made the bodice dig more into your already-sore ribs.

“Did you think fairies just lived in trees and mushrooms?” he laughed. “Most of us live in cities and towns from here to the king’s castle.”

You were about to reply, but instead hissed in pain as your fumbled efforts to unlace the dress had somehow managed to make it even tighter. When you let out a pained whimper, Pine turned around immediately.

“Are you okay?” he asked, quickly stepping to your side as he tried to discern what the problem was.

“I made it tighter by accident,” you croaked, breathing too constricted to speak properly.

As you looked at him with pained eyes, Pine’s own grew wide with panic as you swayed in place, feeling faint. When your eyes started to close almost against your will, you heard Pine call your name, but it sounded too faint for him to be right next to you.

As your eyes closed, you felt an arm around you stabilize you before a cold sensation ran along your back, accompanied by a loud ripping noise. You inhaled deeply, finally able to breathe normally, but finding your back suddenly feeling a draft.

“Hey, are you okay?”

You looked up in a daze to see Pine’s worried face in front of your own. You nodded slowly in response, awareness coming fully back to you at last.

You watched as your movement caused Pine’s eyes to look down on your form before quickly looking away from you, his freckled cheeks pink. Wondering what was up with him, you looked down at yourself, immediately reaching up with both hands to hold the top of your dress against your chest where it had become loose, exposing even more of your chest to view than it had before.

“I, uh, had to cut the back of the dress open,” Pine stated awkwardly, fidgeting on the spot and avoiding your eyes. “I couldn’t figure out how to undo the laces and you–”

“It’s fine,” you interrupted him shyly. How was he more embarrassed than you when it was you whose body was exposed? The absurdity of the situation helped bring down the level of embarrassment that you were feeling. “Feels good to be able to breathe again.”

Pine let out a relieved exhale as he turned his back to you again to let you change. “I’ve never understood why a lack of breathing was fashionable for women.”

You laughed as you pulled the dress off at last, tossing the ruined fabric to the side. “Sometimes it’s worth it, but not when it’s to be married off to some mountain troll with wings.”

“That bad?” Pine asked as you pulled the shirt on over your head, surprised at how soft the fabric felt against your skin.

“I’m not sure what was worse,” you started, unable to resist the urge to complain about the ordeal. “The speech he gave about why _women should know to be quiet while the men talk_ or him winking at me and gesturing to his dick like five minutes after meeting him.”

“Ugh,” Pine groaned in response. “Glad I’ve never met him, he sounds like a nightmare.”

“Well I’m not surprised his dad had to kidnap a bride for him,” you joked. “I can’t imagine any woman wanting to marry into that willingly!”

As much as you tried to maneuver them, the pants weren’t a good fit, so you left them off; Pine’s shirt was long enough on you to be a mini-dress anyways, so you could work with that for now. Smoothing down the front of the shirt, you let Pine know that it was safe to turn around.

“The pants didn’t fit, but thanks for the shirt,” you said, handing the pants back to him.

He nodded. “We can find you something else when we get to the city.”

His words reminded you of something he had said earlier. “…why is it we have to leave here so fast? I thought you concealed the entrance to the tree.”

“That will keep the guards away, but not the king,” Pine answered. “Fairy promises allow the promise holder the power to enforce the contract, which is how the king turned you this size. But it also gives him the power to track you down within a certain range.”

The thought horrified you. “So was that how he knew I came back to the cottage?”

“I’d say so,” Pine agreed. “So we need to leave here before he can get close enough to track you.”

“Should we really wait until tomorrow then?” you asked, fear pricking along your skin. You couldn’t let that creep get a hold of you again, not right when you were finally free of him.

“We’ll be fine for tonight,” he assured you. “It’ll take time for the dark king to assemble a search party. We can leave early in the morning if you’d like, so we can put as much distance between him and us as we can.”

“So if he gets close to me, he’ll know where I am?” you clarified.

“I’ve never made a fairy promise myself, but from what I’ve heard, the promise scroll projects a light that leads to the other person if they’re close enough,” Pine replied. “But our main problem is keeping you out of his sight.”

“Does him seeing me change anything?” you asked, unsure of why he was just repeating himself.

Pine’s face looked so serious, and you found yourself missing the easy smile he wore earlier when you had teased him about his name.

“Fairy promises aren’t just used for tracking. They grant the holder the power to use magic against the promise-keeper if they can see them,” Pine added.

You shuddered. “These things seem way too powerful to be legal.”

“I’ve thought that myself too,” Pine sighed. “They’re mostly used by older generations, so nobody has thought to get rid of them altogether.”

“Then if he’s close enough, will we be able to see the trail of light from the contract?” you asked. That would at least let you know if he was close to you, and give you a direction to run away from.

Pine shook his head. “Fairy promises give all of the power to the promise-holder. There would be no point in having the promise-keeper be able to see the line, otherwise they would be able to avoid the holder of the fairy promise.”

“Wait,” you spoke up as a curious thought popped up in your mind. “You said that the promise gives the holder the power to use magic. Does that mean fairies can’t normally use magic?”

Pine blinked in response, staring at you as if you were stating the obvious. You turned away from him in embarrassment. “Well in Peter Pan, they use pixie dust, and in Winx Club…”

You shut your mouth, realizing you were rambling, but Pine didn’t look phased when you shyly turned back to peek at him when he still hadn’t said anything.

Mercifully, he changed the subject. “You know, you can ask me next time to help loosen your dress. I’ve helped my sister with hers a bunch of times.”

He had a sister? You weren’t really sure where to focus in on from his sentence, but settled for the easy way out, hesitant to ask him questions that were too personal when you barely knew each other.

“I’ll let you know, but I wasn’t planning on being forced into one of those again,” you said, staring at the dirty ball of dress pooled by your feet. The dress looked like it had been through a tornado, covered in patches of dirt and ripped to hell; looking at the sorry state of the dress, you realized that you couldn’t look much better after all you had been through in the past day or so.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a bathroom in this place, would you?” you asked, trying to smooth your hair into what you hoped was an acceptable style, grimacing when your hand brushed against a twig that you hadn’t known was in your hair.

“Not in this one,” Pine said as you pulled the twig out of your hair and set it on the ground. “We’re a few days from the next town, so we can stop at a lake along the way to bathe.”

You were about to object, knowing that there were no lakes in the area your family’s cottage was in, but held yourself back as you realized that everything was so much bigger to fairies. By _lake_ , he probably meant a pond, or even a large puddle. With how gross you were beginning to feel, you hoped the so-called lake wasn’t too far from where you were now; you could only stand to be in gaudy makeup with dirty hair for so long.

“Hey, are you hungry?” Pine’s voice broke you out of your thoughts and you looked over to see him staring inquisitively at you.

Now that you thought about it, you hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the previous day. The stress you had been under had probably prevented you from feeling it, but now that Pine had mentioned food, your stomach felt painfully empty.

“I haven’t eaten since yesterday,” you confessed with a frown. “Though with that tight dress on, I probably wouldn’t have been able to eat anyways.”

Standing up, Pine made his way over to a corner of the room, picking up a brown messenger bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “It’s safer for you to stay here, but I can go find us something.”

“Are you sure?” you asked, feeling bad that he was going so out of his way for your sake.

He shrugged. “I’m getting hungry too, so I would’ve gone anyways.”

You couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or just being nice, but your empty stomach made you want to accept his kindness.

“Thanks,” you said at last. It was a weird feeling, being so reliant on someone you barely knew, but you knew that without Pine, you would already been back in the clutches of the dark king and his loser son. When you were normal-sized again, you would have to do something to thank him.

“No problem,” Pine grinned. “And don’t worry, if anything happens while I’m gone, Trigger will protect you.”

You looked over to the sleeping bee, who was buzzing quietly in his sleep. While you hoped the threat of the dark fairy king could be avoided until tomorrow, Trigger had more than proved himself thus far, even though your ride on his back had been almost scarier than your climb down the thorned vines.

“Stay safe,” you told him, trying to stave off the worry you were feeling; there was no need to add any more stress to his plate right now.

With a last wave and a reassuring smile, Pine headed back down the hallway, his footsteps eventually fading from your range of hearing. When you could no longer hear him, you released a breath you hadn’t realized you had been holding in as you sank back into the pile of blankets you had been sitting on.

You closed your eyes, trying to steady your breathing as your head began to swim with the thoughts that you had been suppressing since you had gotten into this whole situation. A week ago, you had been sitting on your couch, boredly scrolling through the internet on your phone; at the time, you had been wishing that something would happen, wanting something to save you from your boredom. But now, you just wanted that nice, boring day back, feeling low as you regretted taking that moment for granted.

Why did you ever complain to your friends about being single? You would rather be single for the rest of your life than spend one more moment with the tinder-reject that was the dark fairy prince. Cragg was a fitting name for him, you thought with an amused exhale; he behaved like a caveman, so it was only fitting that he had a name that sounded like it was straight out of a caveman movie.

In complete contrast to Cragg was Pine, your surprise savior. As shocking as it was to be kidnapped by fairies, being rescued by one was just as much of a surprise to you. This kind of stuff only happened in movies, but it was an entirely different thing to go through yourself. You would much rather watch a movie where there was a guaranteed happy end than live in the unsettling reality that you were on the run from kidnappers that were equipped with an all-powerful magic contract and would stop at nothing to keep you trapped within the walls of their cold, dark fortress for the rest of your life.

You still didn’t understand why Pine was willing to help you; he hadn’t really given you a straight answer earlier, changing the subject with a joke. You were pretty sure that he was a good person, his banter with Trigger was enough to tell you that, but you couldn’t help but feel that he hadn’t told you the full truth about why he had decided to help you.

Even with your reservations, you didn’t want to press Pine on his reasoning right now; as things were, he was helping you with no tangible benefit to himself, and you didn’t want to do anything to change that. So far, he seemed like a kind, easygoing, if not dorky, guy. You didn’t think you had the world’s best sense of intuition by any means, but to the best of your knowledge, Pine seemed like he was a genuinely nice person. And besides, without his help you were doomed, although it didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eyes either.

Shaking your head, you tried to banish the thought from your brain; you needed to focus on breaking the fairy promise, not checking out the guy who was doing you a massive favor. You would need to keep your feelings in check; the last thing you wanted was to make things awkward. And besides, it wasn’t like there was any chance of anything happening; you were a human and he was a fairy, and at the end of this, you would be normal-human-sized again. There was no way anything could happen with Pine, and you would repeat that to yourself as many times as you had to until you got it through your head, especially because you didn’t need Pine returning to see you all flustered with no good explanation as to why.

Speaking of Pine, you realized that he had been gone quite a while. You tried to quell your worries with rationality; they were looking for you, not a lone male fairy. There was no way they could know that you were with him, at least not yet, and from the way Pine had spoken of the dark king, they had never met before, so he had anonymity on his side as well. He would be fine, you fervently refused to believe otherwise.

However, just thinking about the next day was enough to shatter the calm you had managed to attain. You realized at the moment that you hadn’t even asked how far away the fairy king’s castle was. Just how long of a journey had you signed yourself up for?

You couldn’t even rely on your friends or family noticing your absence. Even if they did get worried after a day of no-contact, there was no way they would find you, deep in the woods and shrunk down to the size of an ant. All this stuff seemed way more exciting when you watched it happen to a character in a movie; all you felt being in the situation yourself was dread. If you got out of this, you would not be able to look at any movies with fairies the same way again.

You hadn’t realized that you had fallen asleep until you were being gently but urgently nudged awake. With a tired groan, you tried to ignore the prodding, wanting to sleep longer, but a call of your name had you reluctantly opening your eyes to look up at Pine, who gave you a small smile when he noticed that you were awake at last. But even through your haze of sleep, you noticed the tension in the air immediately.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, sitting up quickly as your sleepiness began to fade to a confused panic.

“We have to go,” Pine said, the seriousness in his voice brushing the last of your sleepiness away. “I wanted to let you sleep, but the king was a little faster than I thought he’d be to mobilize a search.”

“Oh…” you breathed as unwelcome anxiety once again took root in your stomach. “…are they here?”

“No, not yet,” he assured you as he stood up. “I noticed the king’s scouts while I was looking for food and had to wait until they left the area before I could come back here.”

“What time is it?” you asked. There was no natural light in the hollow of the tree, only glowing spheres you couldn’t recognize, so for all you knew, you could have been asleep for minutes, hours or days.

“Around ten at night,” Pine answered. “I’ve got Trigger out doing rounds to make sure the coast is clear before we leave.”

Looking over, you confirmed that Trigger wasn’t in his makeshift bed as he had been earlier. You could only blame your ordeal for your lack of awareness; you doubted that you could have slept through the chaos otherwise. But now that you were awake, you couldn’t dawdle, not when the dark king was closing in on you.

A sudden rush of movement sounded by the entrance, followed by Trigger flying into the main room. He let out a series of buzzes that Pine seemed to understand, as he nodded in response, jogging over to the pile of jumbled possessions in the corner and beginning to rummage through them. After a few moments, he pulled out a large brown contraption, although you failed to recognize what it was until he brought it over to Trigger and began to set it up.

Standing up, you moved closer to confirm your suspicions before speaking up. “You had a saddle this whole time?”

Pine looked back at you, feigned innocence clear on his face. Trigger on the other hand buzzed sheepishly, bowing his head.

“Trigger doesn’t like wearing his saddle,” Pine said apologetically, turning back to strap the saddle’s fastenings around the cheeky bee.

You sighed as you made your way closer. At least he had a saddle now… anything to make riding the speedy bee less terrifying. Though you couldn’t pretend you were excited to ride Trigger again, you would do whatever you had to in order to evade the dark king’s men.

Pine was pulling at the saddle’s fastenings as you approached, turning to you when he was satisfied that the saddle was on tight enough. “The dark king must be pretty desperate. I counted around fifty of his soldiers searching the area.”

The sheer number was enough to make you panic, and it clearly showed on your face by how fast Pine began to backtrack. “No, uh, I just meant–”

Trigger interrupted the flustered fairy with a sharp buzz, giving Pine a nudge that was hard enough to have him stumbling forward, barely able to right his balance to avoid falling into you. Turning his head back quickly to glare at the bee, Pine cleared his throat before trying again. “…you don’t have to worry about the guards. There’s no fairy alive that can fly faster than Trigger!”

The immediate dissolution of his composure was enough to distract you temporarily as a laugh left your lips. Rather than react defensively to you laughing at his plight, Pine surprised you by grinning happily, making you wonder if he was just relieved that he had gotten you to calm back down before you burst into tears or something.

Deciding you didn’t want to cause him any more worry, you made your way over to his side with a smile you found that you didn’t need to force on your face. “So when do we leave?”

“Right now, if you’re ready,” Pine replied. “Trigger’s all set up.”

Pine climbed onto Trigger’s back first, patting the bee’s side before offering a hand to help you up. This time he sat you in front of him, which made you feel much more at ease than when you had been behind him hanging on for dear life.

Replacing your fear, however, was a growing sense of embarrassment that you were desperately trying to ignore. It only got harder for you to keep from getting flustered as Pine reached around you to take hold of reins that were tied around Trigger’s mandibles.

Pine’s front wasn’t fully against your back, but he was close enough for you to feel the warmth from his body, not to mention the growing warmth in your cheeks. With his thighs touching yours and his arms around your sides, you had little hope of not being flustered. At least you were facing away from him, so he couldn’t see how embarrassed you were. You had nobody to blame but yourself for your current state anyways; you weren’t fourteen anymore, so why had you allowed yourself to indulge in entertaining an infatuation with your unfairly handsome rescuer?

Pine was thankfully oblivious as he gently pulled the reins up, Trigger’s grumbled buzzes reaching your ears, making you feel bad for being the reason he was in his greatly-detested saddle.

You were then startled by Pine leaning down towards you to whisper in your ear. “Don’t worry about him. Just give him some pats and he’ll forget all about the saddle.”

His sudden closeness caused you a slight delay in registering his words, but it became easier to focus again once he had moved back away. Cursing your easily-distracted mind, you moved to do as he had said, bringing a hand over to Trigger’s fur in order to give him some gentle scratches. The grumbled buzzes quickly turned to purrs, leading you to believe that he had accepted your trade-off for his agreeing to wear the saddle.

“Ready?” Pine asked as you removed your hand from Trigger’s fur to sit up straight again. You nodded, nerves suddenly freezing your mouth shut, and then Pine gave a quick whistle and Trigger began to beat his wings, lifting you into the air.

You stayed close to the ground on your way towards the opening of the tree, the ceiling too low for Trigger to fly properly in. This low altitude was tolerable, but you knew that it wouldn’t be long until you were in the open air again and up too high for your own comfort. But you didn’t have a choice, you had to go now if you didn’t want to risk the dark king getting too close.

The outside world was dark, the sun having set long before you had woken up. You already hadn’t been a big fan of forests at night, but there was infinitely more to fear now that you were tiny, not to mention being pursued by crazy fairy kidnappers. Crazy how much was hiding in a world you had thought you had a general understanding of.

You wished you could just close your eyes and pretend that you were on a farm somewhere, riding a normal horse, but it wasn’t that easy. Sitting on a bee felt nothing like a horse, the wind rushing around you making it impossible to fool yourself into thinking you were anywhere but where you were, fleeing for your life from a winged psycho and his creepy son.

“Stay in the trees, Trigger,” Pine instructed his friend as Trigger took flight, zipping through the tall trees. Pine leaned towards you again, turning his attention to you. “If we want to get away, we need to avoid open areas where we’ll be easily spotted.”

Oh. You hadn’t even thought of that, too busy worrying about getting as far away as fast as you could. But now that you thought about it, that had been your first thought when escaping the castle; the dark fairies did seem to like their wide open areas, if the area surrounding their castle was any indication.

You couldn’t see much with how dark it was, but luckily Trigger could somehow, as he smoothly flew around branches and through leaves. You could at least see enough of the outline of the trees immediately ahead, giving you time to duck whenever a cluster of leaves got too close overhead for comfort.

You wanted to say something to break the oppressive silence, but you knew it wasn’t the right time. If you wanted to outrun the king’s minions, then you couldn’t distract Pine or Trigger; with how high the stakes were, one distraction could have you back in the grasp of that slimy prince.

“Have you ever done something like this before?” Pine’s voice made you jolt in surprise, as you hadn’t expected him to speak up.

“…ridden a bee?” you replied incredulously. “I’ve been stung by a bee before, but they’re too small for me to ride.”

“Then have you flown on anything?” he asked instead.

You weren’t sure how to answer his question without confusing him more. “Have you heard of airplanes?”

“Air… planes?” he echoed, sounding like he was pronouncing a word in a foreign language for the first time.

You laughed. “They’re like these big boxes with wings that fly in the sky. People take them to get to places that are too far to walk.”

You hoped your very remedial explanation wasn’t too confusing, but Pine didn’t seem too bothered as he began to ask follow-up questions about the _boxes with wings_. As you chatted, you began to feel more relaxed, and were even able to start enjoying the ride, the chat with Pine doing a lot to keep you from focussing on your current worries.

For someone who knew so little about the human world, Pine was almost _too_ eager to learn more. You tried to get him off of the subject of planes, quickly being unable to answer all of his questions about just how they worked. You felt you like you were talking to a curious toddler, and hastily tried to change the subject, throwing out the first thing you could think of, which happened to be cotton candy.

“Humans eat… cotton?” he replied warily, as if he was afraid of what your answer would be.

“No, it’s not actual cotton,” you dismissed with a laugh. “You use this machine to spin sugar into a ball. It’s only called that because it looks like cotton.”

“Oh.” Pine sounded relieved. “So humans just eat balls of sugar?”

“It’s not exactly a ball…” You struggled to think of a better word for it as you looked up at the moonless sky. The momentary glance up finally gave you an idea. “It’s like a cloud.”

“A cloud?” Pine still sounded dubious as Trigger finally cleared the large cropping of trees and you entered into a wide area with much thinner trees.

“Yeah, but with–”

“Trigger, to the left!”

Your words morphed into a gasp as Pine suddenly leaned forward, pressing your body down as far as he could. At his command, Trigger veered sharply to the left. You held as still as possible, scared of making one wrong move and falling off.

Pine kept you pressed down as he continued to give more orders to Trigger, the bee’s maneuvers jostling you from side to side as your hands gripping desperately onto the saddle. You could hear the sounds of wind whipping by you, but it was hard to tell what was going on over Pine’s stern commands and the frantic beat of Trigger’s wings.

“Head for the log!” Pine instructed, and you cried out as you felt a sudden drop as Trigger began to fly sharply downwards.

“What’s going on?” you asked, unable to take not knowing, even as scared as you were.

“They were waiting for us,” Pine responded back, voice tight with frustration.

“What?” you gasped, jolting in shock under Pine’s grip.

“They’re less dumb than I thought. Started shooting arrows at us as soon as we left the trees!”

You could barely hear his voice over the rush of action around you, but you understood the basics. By the fact that you didn’t seem to be falling to your deaths, none of the arrows had hit Trigger. You couldn’t be sure of what was happening since your face was pressed into the saddle, but it was probably for the better, because you were sure that seeing what was happening around you would make you more scared than you were already just feeling the sensations with your eyes closed, feeling as if you were on some terrifying roller coaster. With the drops and zigzags you were feeling right now, your stomach sure felt like you were on a bad theme park ride. You just had to hope this ride wouldn’t end with an arrow in your side.

Just as you were starting to feel a little too breathless from your current position, Pine finally let up on the pressure he was putting down on you, allowing you to reluctantly sit back up. Looking around, you found yourself surrounded by gnarled bark, which was speeding by your vision as Trigger continued his path forward.

“Are we okay?” you asked, frantically glancing behind you, but not seeing anyone chasing you. Pine’s face still looked too serious, which left you unable to shake off the feeling of unease that had been slowly consuming you over the past however many minutes it had been since the chase began.

“Not yet,” he frowned. “And Trigger’s getting tired, so we’ll have to do something to lose them soon.”

Pine was looking behind you at the potential enemies pursuing you, so he missed the danger just ahead. Your gasp, followed by Trigger coming to a quick halt finally brought his attention forward as you stared at a dark shape resting at the end of the hollow log.

Pine stiffened behind you as he noticed the resting creature, but to your great surprise, he urged Trigger forward and towards the animal. Turning back to question him, Pine simply raised a finger to his lips, and you reluctantly turned back to face forward, not wanting to turn your back to the creature. You stared the animal down, praying that it wouldn’t stir and notice your small group.

As you got closer, you were finally able to make out some details in the dark figure resting just ahead of you. It had a largely dark pelt with some sandy patches of fur mixed in, its head resting on the floor of the hollow log, oval-shaped nose surrounded by dark fur that led up its head to blend in with the fur of its back. The sides of its face were lined with a white stripe on each side, as well as a skinnier white stripe that ran from the bridge of its nose all the way to the back of its head.

As recognition began to spark in your brain, your eyes were drawn to its large claws that lay against the tree’s bark, each one longer than you were tall. The general color of it was different than the black and white version you had seen before on the internet, but you weren’t sure what else it could be but a badger. But that meant–

“Pine,” you hissed quietly, tugging on his sleeve. “Those things are super aggressive!”

“I know,” he replied back with a little grin. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

“Huh?”

He raised his finger to his lips again with a wink and you closed your mouth again, largely because you were now passing over the sleeping badger. You stared at its body, scared to even breathe, lest you became a badger snack. You kept your eyes on its fur, which shifted with each breath the slumbering creature made, scared that it would wake up at any moment and set its eyes on you.

You began to allow yourself to relax when you had finally flown past the badger, but then Pine signalled Trigger to stop just behind the animal. You turned back again to try and reason with Pine, but reconsidered when you saw him staring at something ahead of you, expression so serious that you didn’t feel that you should speak up and distract him.

Instead, you turned your head back to try and see what he was looking at. The hollow log was too dark at this time of night for you to see much, the only light coming in patches from holes at the top of the log. You squinted in the darkness, wondering what exactly it was you were supposed to be looking at, when you finally thought you saw something.

You were unsure at first if you had seen something, or if the darkness was messing with your vision, but it became more clear as the tiny spots in your vision grew closer. You could only see their general shape, but that was enough; you didn’t need more than the outline of men with wings to know that their skin was blue and they served the most annoying prince you had ever had the displeasure of meeting.

Feeling movement behind you, you looked back to see Pine slowly and quietly reaching into the messenger bag that rested at his side, pulling out an object that you had never seen outside of cartoons. The two-pronged wooden slingshot was reinforced with some type of material wrapped around the base, the sling part of it made out of a sturdy-looking cord. Along with the slingshot, he pulled a long, thin object out of his bag that you could only guess was some sort of a sharpened thorn.

Before you could ask him why he carried stuff like that on him, he loaded his slingshot with the makeshift arrow and pulled the cord back. You ducked down, not wanting to be in the way as you watched him take aim. You found that he looked rather cute like that, one eyes closed and teeth biting down slightly on his lower lip as he focused on his aim.

Just as the dark fairies were getting a little too close for comfort, he fired at last, the thorn shooting out with impressive speed. You had assumed he was aiming at the rapidly-approaching soldiers, so you were surprised when the thorn shot straight into the badger’s backside. Had he missed?

You turned back to Pine, frantic with worry, only to see a satisfied smile on his face. You then froze up immediately as a horrible snarl rang out in the otherwise-quiet log. Before you could look back at the badger, Pine quickly pulled you into his chest before whispering for Trigger to move.

Barely waiting for Pine’s go-ahead, Trigger hurriedly turned tail and fled towards the other end of the log. Since you were now facing Pine, you were able to look around him to see the very awake and very angry badger take notice of the dark king’s men, charging at them, emboldened by the terrified screams of the guards as they fled. You watched the chase until Trigger had exited the log and you took to the air again, the frenzied chase now out of your sight.

As soon as you were a good distance away from the log, Pine let out a victorious whoop, finally letting go of you once Trigger landed on a branch of a tall tree. Freedom from Pine’s arms could not have come soon enough for you, as your heart was racing a little too fast being held so closely to his chest, your ear right against his heartbeat. You were felt like a middle-schooler on your first date, and hated yourself for it.

Pine helped you down from Trigger’s back and you were barely able to keep yourself from collapsing on the spot. While you pressed a hand to your forehead, feeling drained, Pine looked more alive than ever as he re-stowed the slingshot in his bag before turning to you with a happy grin.

“I think that’ll buy us some time,” he said, closing the flap on his bag.

You weren’t sure whether to be mad or relieved, so you settled on a mixture of both. “How did you know that would even work?”

He shrugged. “Badgers are aggressive even when they aren’t mad, and they seem to think fairies look like food.”

Before you could ask him how he knew that, he was rolling up one sleeve and gesturing with his chin to a long scar along his left upper arm. The wound was fully healed, but left a slightly-jagged white scar from the top of his shoulder to his elbow.

You grimaced just looking at it, but he didn’t seem bothered. “Didn’t listen to my father’s warnings about badgers. He lectured me the entire time my wound was being treated.”

He spoke of it like it was a funny story, but his words left you somewhat unnerved. His son gets mauled by an animal at least a hundred times his size and his first priority is to lecture him? Didn’t sound like a family relationship to envy.

Before you could ask him anything more, Pine had turned to Trigger, who was slumped on the branch, wings and antennae drooping. Pine looked over the bee, gaze quickly fixing on one of Trigger’s wings.

You began to get worried as Pine bent down to take a closer look at a section of one wing. “Is he okay?”

Pine nodded. “It looks like he sprained a wing escaping the dark king’s men.”

“Is that bad?” you asked. You knew what a sprain meant in human terms, but had never encountered a sprained bee wing before.

“He used to get them back when we were in the racing circuit. A day or two off his wing usually heals them up,” Pine explained.

You couldn’t help yourself. “…racing circuit?”

“Oh, yeah,” Pine grinned. “We were an unbeatable team, but the bug racing scene is pretty rough, so we retired when we were still on top.”

Sketchy bug racing ring, noted. Your head was spinning with all the new things you were learning about fairy society. Trigger, however, seemed pleased by Pine’s praise, buzzing happily as he puffed up his thorax with pride, even as he kept his strained wing flat against his back.

“So do we need to wait a day before we can keep going?” you asked. Trigger had already done so much for you, so you didn’t want to push him any further when he had an injury.

Pine shook his head. “That badger will buy us hours, but not days. We’ll have to head out on foot and meet up with Trigger in the city.”

“Will he be okay on his own?” you frowned, staring at Trigger’s injured wing.

Hearing your worry, Trigger shuffled up to you, angling his face up towards you. You stared at him for a moment until he arched himself up a bit more and you finally understood his request, reaching a hand over to give him his coveted head scratches, the bee buzzing happily under your touch.

“He’ll be fine.” You looked back to Pine when he spoke up to see him watching fondly as you continued to pet the bee. “Trigger knows how to handle himself.”

You still didn’t feel good about leaving him behind, but it wasn’t like you had many other options right now. Trigger wouldn’t let you get lost in your thoughts, nudging your side with a cheerful buzz that you interpreted as him trying to reassure you that he would be fine. Shaking your head with mock exasperation, you smiled down at him; if you hadn’t experienced it yourself, you would never have believed a bee could be so expressive.

As much as you wanted to protest further and propose a way to not have to leave Trigger behind, nothing was coming to mind. And looking back to Pine, you realized that you should probably stop protesting and let Pine use the few hours of leeway you had to get some sleep. He had been alert and aware the entire time you had been with him, but looking at him now, you could tell that the day had been wearing on him. He hadn’t said anything, but he was blinking a lot slower, his posture droopier, and he hadn’t had the luxury of a nap that you had earlier.

“You should get some sleep,” you told him. “I’m still pretty awake, so I can keep an eye out for any trouble!”

You had tried to sound confident, but knew that you were way out of your depth. Pine was nice enough to not question your shaky authority, instead walking the few steps back to sit down and lay his back against the trunk of the tree.

“You should try to get some rest too,” Pine spoke up. “It’s a long walk from here to the city.”

“I will,” you promised, sitting down beside Trigger to give him some more pats.

When you looked back at Pine, his eyes were closed, so you decided to leave it at that. The forest was quiet now, absent of the arrows and shouts that had previously pierced the air. Even though you were on the run, you were in a much better place than you had been the previous night, both physically and emotionally.

The chilly nighttime air was infinitely more pleasant than the freezing cold of the dark, stone castle you had slept in last night. Staring out at the gently-rustling leaves that surrounded you, you could only hope that the fairy princess would be willing to undo the curse of her evil counterparts.

**Author's Note:**

> I promise there will be more of the love interest next chapter, including his name and what he looks like :) Hope you enjoyed the chapter!


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